Aliens: Dark Descent

Some critic I can't remember once described Hamlet as a text made up entirely of quotations. You can say the same of Aliens - every line and scene, every musical sting or prop is a cherished pop culture artefact, and I imagine that, when adapting the movie, it's easy to feel like you're just bolting together the pieces. It takes real insight to reconstruct those pieces in a way that feels both faithful and transformative, and while Aliens: Dark Descent isn't always as graceful or inspired as it could be, it just about sticks the landing. State of the badass art? Near as damn it.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fascinating, tense, inspired survival horror RTS with a few too many technical bugs to recommend it without caveats.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fresh and fun take on the series, with great tactical action supplemented with unique concepts like stress management. The writing and characters sadly don't amount to anything memorable, and boss battles can feel incredibly jarring to the pacing and tension.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fun real-time strategy squad game that manages to feel tense and rewarding at the same time. It isn’t a perfect game, the loop can get a bit repetitive, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying every second of it.